One more shift and I leave it. When we talk about a shift strategy game, specifically one of the saga ‘civilization’that phrase is a cliché. That is why it is less true, and something that I have discovered in recent days with the analysis of ‘Civilization VII’ is to what extent I missed that feeling that I had for months with the fifth installment and that lost some magic With the sixth.
It is always difficult to talk about a strategy game because what it offers is very different from what we can live in an adventure or action title, these being more linear and anchored experiences, in general, to which developers want you to live. In a ‘civilization’, the strategy has to do, but it doesn’t matter the plans you make because the artificial intelligence of the game is there to punch.
And from the last game of the remarkable saga of Sid Meier I have two things to say. The first is that I thought I was tired of the franchise formulasince I have been with this experience for many years and, despite being the VI in the market, I kept playing every time to V (For me, the best).
The second thing I have to say is that I was wrong. I didn’t know to what extent.
Who wants historical fidelity
Every time a game with historical dyes is launched, there is no lack of those who argue that any detail that comes out of what is considered ‘historical fidelity’ is something that ruins the experience. I read some comments of this style when it was learned that in this game we could have Isabel I of Castilla as the leader of the Han of Chinabut let’s be serious: we are in a saga in which it is goal to launch the atomic bomb with Gandhi. We cannot come now with historical fidelity.
I admit that it is shocking for those who carry several deliveries of the saga, but choosing leader and civilization separately is something that changes everything. If the saga already allowed us, more or less, to do what we would like, Now freedom is total. Each of the leaders has some attributes and their own tree, but each civilization also has its characteristics.
Taking advantage of that mechanics is what will help us to have a better or worse in the game (not in fun, but in terms of frustration) but I think, otherwise, it is pure ‘civilization’. This is: to found the capital of our empire, building buildings of production, fun, research, economy or military in the adjacent boxes; Found new cities and try to conquer the map. All this in shifts and while we make crumbs with some neighbors who, many times, are quite touches noses.
I think the best thing I can do is tell you about my first game. I started with the Vietnamese Trung Trắc, who faced the Han dynasty. Well, my civilization, precisely, was that of Han. Attributes: militaristic and scientific. “It serves me,” I thought, so … to work. As I knew it was the game for the analysis, I wanted to give it pepper (I regretted immediately) and I started in medium difficulty, with huge map and founded my capital next to a volcano (they enter into the erupting destroying buildings from time to time).
I started expanding and soon I founded two other cities: one mining company and one agricultural, all with the sea, so it could happen in the future. I continued advancing my city and creating only some units, Until I met Benjamin Franklin. All good at first. Also with Machiavelli, whom I met shortly after. And with José Rizal things also like silk. “I am a pacifist,” I thought, although Trung is doing the military.
To Machiavelli, no water
When I followed my ball expanding and strengthening my relationship with the three, Machiavelli and Benjamin went their heads and declared the war mutually, also Rizal. He supported whoever supported, two were going to be angry, so I did what any militarist shark mind would do: I supported Rizal, who lived much further, and went into war with Machiavelli and Benjamin. Both.
I wanted to stay its cities, so it came from pearls. I started to fortify my cities and reinforce the borders. I created a siege ballist and destroyed one of the cities of Machaiavelo. It was the one hundred and peak turn and my enemy were no longer two dead as Italian and the American, but … the crisis. I knew that crises were a mechanics of the game, but I was so concentrated that I didn’t see him coming. And it arrived, as if it were Lehman Brothers in 2008.
Aid
The crisis reached my empire with social discontent and an economic hole due to the number of units it had to maintain. I did what a leader does: look for oil in a foreign nation And keep pressing my enemies without paying attention to my people when, suddenly, everything ended. Antiquity came to an end and the era of discoveries came. It was necessary to decide what civilization to make the leap and chose the Norman (total, put to burst historical fidelity …) and discovered something curious: the crisis had vanished.
My units had made the leap to their most current versions of the new age, the buildings had changed design, some that no longer served were gone and all the wars had vanished (although the relationship with the enemy leaders did not improve). He had to start over a new era, one that rewards you with juicy resources if you are going to explore new continents, where there will also be other factions with which to decide how to relate.
And there I was, with the crisis resolved as if by magic, with a city of Machiavelli in my possession, having demonstrated to Benjamin how the Chinese are spent controlled by a Vietnamese and with a new world to discover and conquer. The problem is that, with my expansionist cravings, I made a mistake again: meanwhile menu, with a minimalist design that makes a player who comes from previous games to be lost, I skipped the religion.
A garrafal failure, since this game (which I have not finished), I think it is going to pique or, at least, it will cost me very expensive. My rivals were not sending soldiers to my guarded borders: they were sending missionaries. The missionaries can enter your wide in my cities and turn my citizens and there I saw six cities, each of a religion.
There came a time when a narrative event put me between the sword and the wall: monotheism or that each one believes in what they want. Choose whatever he chose, someone would get angry. This happened and two cities are rebelling against me.
That guy in Chang’an is turning my citizens
When that happens, they begin to burn buildings and it is complex to redirect it. I started a new game to leave that when I wanted to end the rebels, but in my new game, much more focused on a single objective (in the first, for the analysis, I wanted to cover everything), I reached a modern age of The one that I am not going to tell anything because it is the most interesting at the playable level due to the madness that is practically unleashed in each shift.
And all this in a shift loop from which it is difficult to leave. One of the days I played was Sunday and I thought: I have nothing more to do, so I’m going to make coffee and I feel calm with the ‘Civi’. That was at 10. When I looked at the clock, it was 14 and I hadn’t made coffee.
The circuits weigh me
Because science is not done alone, I have played on PC, but in three different systems. One is a desktop with i7-7700k and one GTX 1080another a laptop with a RTX 3060 And also in the Steam Deck. The first is the first: there is no saved in the cloud in Steam, at least launch, so the only way to start a game on a PC and continue it in another is through the Cross-Save It is activated by linking your 2K account. It seems lie at this point, but it is.
As for performance, with nvidia cards there is no DLSSsomething strange considering that it does show the AMD FSR technology (which comes as a ring to Steam Deck) and also from Intel climber. We have a lot of parameters to touch and performance is good, and with wide customization options, on my three PC.
Now, when we enter the last era, the thing changes. Although the 1.080p resolution has been handled on the computers, Steam Deck shows the circuits here and I had to lower the graphic quality something. It is a period of time in which there are many artificial intelligence calculations (some are inconsistent and are belligrating all the time, although they have just fallen defeated) and they move huge maps, so it is totally normal for it to occur.
However, I have to say that it continues to see great, we can adjust the climber in ‘ultra -up’ mode to scratch Frames For the second and the control scheme in the Valve laptop is still very good. And at the audiovisual level it is excellent, with a more realistic style that VI and with an overwhelming detail both in the cities, where small buildings shine as if they were miniatures, and a very good sound, with a large soundtrack and folded voices.
Made the technical note, I have to say that I thought they could not innovate at this point, but with changes here and there, they have created an experience that He feels familiar and refreshing for veterans (With a period of adaptation to the most minimalist icons and interface), it welcomes rookies in the genre and is, above all, very funny.
The depth is overwhelming, with experience points to be distributed among your leader, some units, a multitude of policies that you can apply, the so -called ‘legacy routes’ that mark objectives that reward us if we meet them during the game and, in summary accounts, An amount of base content that does not make it feel that it is an incomplete game.
It is, in short, how to return home, and at the same time I feel that it is the best starting point for any player who wants to enter the saga. And when I’m working, the only thing I think is to return. And to erase Benjamin from the map.
Images | Xataka
In Xataka | The best 17 free strategy games for PC